International Assessment Of Schools Is Endorsed

Washington--An Education Department initiative to increase the scope
and comparability of educational assessments worldwide has been
endorsed by international committees, clearing the way for more
detailed work on ways to compare educational systems across national
boundaries.

At a December meeting in Paris, two education panels of the
Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development approved
summaries of a Washington conference on education indicators and a
tentative plan for proceeding with the project.

"The important thing is that, finally, although this has been a U.S.
initiative and will continue to be a U.S. initiative, other countries
are interested to the extent that they will be taking action
themselves," said Stewart Tinsman, director of the
international-affairs staff in the Education Department's office of
intergovernmental and interagency affairs.

Department officials said they initiated the effort and sponsored
the first conference because valid international data are important in
measuring the success or failure of4American education and in their
drive to hold educators accountable for their performance. (See
Education Week, Dec. 2, 1987.)

The plan endorsed in Paris calls for the o.e.c.d. to enhance its
existing data-collection efforts and to work on new mechanisms to
assess educational outcomes and goals.

Representatives from the organization's 24 member nations will be
invited to a follow-up meeting in Paris this March, where they are
expected to indicate which factors--such as curriculum content, school
completion rates, or teacher qualifications--they are interested in
measuring. Some nations may offer to take the lead in developing
certain indicators, Mr. Tinsman said.

"That's about as much as we can say until we see what the
invitations say and what the French and o.e.c.d. decide as to what the
agenda will be," he said.

Of the 24 o.e.c.d. countries--all Western, developed nations--about
a dozen have expressed definite interest in developing one or more
assessment mechanisms, Mr. Tinsman said.--jm

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